Tech Gadgets Reviews

[Web 2.0] Blurb, is a cool online creative book publishing service that lets you create your own book and sell it. Today, Blurb launched Blurb GroupBook, a FaceBook application that allows users to create real books collectively.

How it works (see pictures in the full article)

• Install Blurb GroupBook from the Facebook Applications Directory
• Create a GroupBook project
• Invite friends to contribute photos to the book. Once they accept the invitation they can upload and view photos, and make comments
• As the book producer, you review the photos and select the ones you like
• When ready, import the photos and create the book with Blurb BookSmart (easy download from the website)

Launched last year, Blurb has released today an updated beta version of BookSmart (1.9.4) and has recently been nominated for a 2008 Webby Award in the Services category.

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Apr 15th 2008 at 10:19AM

Tesla Motors can’t seem to keep itself out of the press, can it? The newest flare-up concerns rival Fisker and claims that the automaker has stolen trade secrets and copied design concepts. In a lawsuit filed Monday by Tesla, the carmaker accuses Henrik Fisker — whom the company had hired to design its WhiteStar sedan — of accepting the work to “gain access to confidential design information and trade secrets.” The company alleges that Fisker then used that knowledge to launch a competing vehicle, and believes Fisker has implemented its range-extended vehicle (or REV) technology in the recently introduced Karma. “I think it’s ironic that Fisker chose to name his car the Karma, when what he’s done is very bad karma,” said the company’s lawyer. Fisker wouldn’t comment on the case, then drove silently away when pressed.

[Via CNET]

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Filed under: Transportation

The folks at fring have announced that a new version of their app made specifically for iPhone is out. The application does everything that you would expect, including letting you bring Skype, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo!, and AIM all with you on your iPhone. Along with that ability you can now make free calls over WiFi with a super slick interface. The only requirement is that you need to have a Jailbroken iphone, since this is not a browser-based application.

I followed the instructions at the fringcubator and was up and running in minutes. I then logged into Skype and Google Talk and was off and running. The only issues I found so far is that Twitter, Yahoo and AIM are “chat only”, so you can’t IM with all your buds just yet. It does include built-in sounds and notifiers, though, and I was on my iPhone’s homescreen and heard a tone then saw a number increment on the Fring icon, so the sweet touches are already in place. Great job, especially for a pre-release!

Read more about it at fring.com.

Sky (Pantech & Curitel sub brand) will be dropping the Duke Phone (model number: IM-S330 or IM-S330K) in Korea. Set to be available just for Korean users, the Duke sports sliding form factor, mp3 player, bluetooth connectivity, electronic dictionary, metro card, and integrated 1.3 megapixel camera module. No word on pricing or when this will drop in Korea.
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MobileTechReview has a review of the Palm Centro And writes, “Though only 1.3 megapixels, the camera did an excellent job with the image processing and we got very pleasing colors and a natural sharpness in well lit scenes. There’s less noise in the AT&T version’s photos than Sprint’s for indoor shots, and indoor shots are acceptable. Photo resolutions are 1280 x 1024, 640 x 480 and 320 x 240. There are few settings available, and these are: effect, date stamp, shutter sound on/off and prompt sound and review period. You can save photos to a card and send them via MMS…There are separate icons for camera and camcorder, though you can switch between the two modes once in the application. Video resolutions are 352 x 288 and 176 x 144, and you can record audio (or not), disable the shutter sound, use a limited palette of effects (normal, black & white, sepia) and save video to a card. Video colors are decent, but there’s a great deal of motion blur and moderate noise. Once again, for a $99 PDA phone, we won’t complain: the camera is decent and colorizes (outdoor shots only) in a pleasing fashion.”

Read more about the Palm Centro.

MobiTV will be providing interactive capabilities for the consumer trials courtesy of its A-VSB Initiative that will see consumer trials rolled out throughout the year in more than one US market, hoping to get a better feel of money-making opportunities that A-VSB powered mobile TV can provide to the television ecosystem.

A-VSB is a proposed open standard and backward-compatible enhancement of the existing U.S. digital TV broadcasting system. It includes the A-VSB physical layer and global standard OMA BCAST application layer for mobile broadcasting, showing live local and national content as well as providing interactivity. A-VSB has been proposed to the ATSC for its upcoming mobile and handheld standard ATSC-M/H.

How will your life change with this initiative by MobiTV?

Panasonic’s new 64GB Solid State Disk has just been released in order to complement its line of HD recording professional P2 camcorders. With five 64GB SSD P2 cards installed, you will be able to record up to 5.3 hours of video on an AJ-HPX3000 P2 HD camcorder in AVC-Intra 100 or DVCPRO HD (6.6 hours in 1080/24pN) and 10.6 hours (13.3 hours in 24pN) in AVC-Intra 50 or DVCPRO50. These cards are reusable, making them ideal for long-term production as well as various other applications that require long recording times. There is no word on pricing, but the 64GB P2 card is tipped to ship sometime this fall, complementing the current 32GB and 16GB models.

by Thomas Ricker, posted Apr 15th 2008 at 1:25AM

Oh man, the rumors were true. Asus’ EeePC 900 — the 8.9-inch model — is still plodding along on that same 900MHz Celeron M processor as the original Eee PC 701. Good news: it does run at the full 900MHz without the 630MHz cap of its predecessor (pre-overclocking, that is). Bad News: it’s not the Intel Atom proc promised at CeBIT. A potentional bottleneck when loaded with the relatively CPU heavy XP instead of the Linux-based OS. Still, we’re hoping this is a limitation in the early-launch, Hong Kong / Taiwan models only, and things will get corrected when Atom launches in June. The video after the break clearly demonstrates the multi-touch trackpad (3:50 in) which Engadget was first to discover in the FCC filing.

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Filed under: Laptops

News came out today that Blockbuster offered to buy out Circuit City at a premium over their then valuation. Beats me why they would do this. CC turned them down (also another head-scratcher), b/c they said they were unsure about the financing.

Why isn’t Blockbuster going after Netflix. Seems that their biggest problem.

via CNET

Posted in Miscellaneous

We’re still reeling from Ben Heck’s amazing PS3 laptop (which we’ll be auctioning off for charity soon) but the man just hit us again with this amazing Apple IIGS laptop. Based off an original IIGS motherboard, the one-of-a-kind laptop features a 15-inch color screen, custom acrylic keyboard, a CompactFlash-based hard drive, and — most importantly — a glowing blue IIGS logo that flashes yellow during disk access. Hit the read link for tons more pics and a hot demo video — you won’t be disappointed.
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